Celebrating the life, career and enduring impact of a culinary icon.

This event will take place at the British Library. It will be simultaneously live streamed on the British Library platform. Tickets may be booked either to attend in person (physical), or to watch on our platform (online) either live or within 48 hours on catch up.  Viewing links will be sent out shortly before the event. Please note that the online version of this event is only available as part of the online day pass.

The online version of this event will be live captioned.

Part of the British Library Food Season Super Sunday. Day pass and single session tickets available. Please note that the online version of this event is only available as part of the online day pass.

Fergus Henderson is joined on stage by his wife, chef and restaurateur, Margot and chef Jeremy Lee. With a roll-call of St John alumni and other leading food figures joining in to celebrate one of the most iconic and adored figures in restaurants in the year that he turns sixty.

Fergus Henderson is widely recognised as one of the most influential figures in the modern restaurant scene, both in the UK and internationally, responsible for transforming how and what people cook and eat. He co-founded the multi award winning St. JOHN restaurant in 1994, where he coined the now-ubiquitous phrase Nose-to-Tail eating. His eponymous and garlanded cookbook of the same name, Nose to Tail Eating, which was published in 1999 and went on to be named in the LA Times as the most influential cookbook of all time. This and his three subsequent books have remained in print ever since; widely read, used and admired and hailed as essential modern classics. In 2005 Fergus received an MBE for services to gastronomy, this was upgraded in 2020 to an OBE for services to the culinary arts. A Lifetime Achievement Award from the influential 50 Best Restaurants list, Tatler, Observer, and the BBC are just some of the accolades Fergus has been awarded. 

New Zealand born chef Margot Henderson began her career working at the iconic Eagle pub in Farringdon in the 1990s, and rose to prominence in the world of hospitality alongside her business partner, Melanie Arnold, with whom she ran The French House in Soho for seven years, together with Fergus Henderson. Margot and Melanie founded their catering company together, now the acclaimed East Shoreditch restaurant, Rochelle Canteen, where they offer a seasonal produce-led menu supporting local farmers, and she is the chef-owner of new venture The Three Horseshoes restaurant-pub-with-rooms in Somerset

Jeremy Lee joined the Hart brothers at Quo Vadis in Soho in early 2012, becoming Chef Proprietor of this venerable restaurant. Jeremy had previously manned the stoves of Blueprint Café on the first floor of the Design Museum, which Sir Terence Conran created on the south bank of the River Thames near Tower Bridge. This singular cook has worked with such distinguished restaurateurs as Simon Hopkinson and Alastair Little, who all played a considerable part in the great resurgence of modern British cooking. In 2012 Jeremy and Quo Vadis won the category of Best Restaurant Menu of the Year and in 2013 the Tatler Award for Best kitchen. In 2018, Jeremy was listed in The Evening Standard’s ‘Progress 1000: London’s most influential people – Tastemakers: Eat & Drink’.  He writes for numerous newspapers and periodicals and has appeared on television Could You Eat an Elephant? For Channel 4 and several series of Great British Menu. Jeremy’s first cookbook, Cooking: Simply and Well for One or Many, was in 2022. 

This event is part of the British Library Food Season 2023. 

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